Journal Five by Alisha

Part one: Two things I noticed about Beah’s use of diction from today’s reading is when Beah wrote “I was marveling at the glittering cityscape when the truck turned off the street and began galloping so heavily” (Beah 131) Beah’s choice of words in the sentence stood out to me. Especially the ruck galloping down the street. While reading this I actually started picturing what a truck would look like if it could actually gallop down the road. Beah also wrote “I looked at him with disgust and spat on the ground.” (Beah 144) this just showed how Beah felt about being there and how he did not respect any of the civilians. 

Part two: I had a friend that one day started running around with the wrong people. She met a guy who was always on something and was continuously in and out of prison. Out of her own foolishness she messed around and got pregnant and started using drugs and got lost along the way. She ended up losing her kid and her boyfriend was back in prison. My family then tried to help her out. They got temporary custody of the kid and let her move into our house to try and help her clean up. At this point she was already too far gone. My parents tried helping as much as they could but she could not give up the drugs. Her boyfriend later got out of prison and she went right back to him, she continued with all the bad things and lost her little girl for good. Shortly after she had another kid and lost him just the same. To this day she is just like her boyfriend. In and out of prison and addicted to whatever she can be and she will never have the chance of knowing her own children.